If I could come up with a word to describe the absurdity of postseason baseball, particularly at the college level, I would be getting paid a lot more money to write words. Nobody illustrates the maniacal unpredictability of the sport better than the Oklahoma Sooners.
When the regular season ended, they had a sub .500 record in SEC play. Oklahoma was near the NCAA Tournament bubble, thanks to a one-and-done effort in the SEC Tournament.
The Sooners didn’t look like anywhere close to the best team in the sport. Now, they’re one game away from winning the College World Series.
Oklahoma’s nine-game winning streak was snapped on Sunday in a 6-2 loss to North Carolina. They’ll face the Tar Heels in a third and decisive game three on Monday. The action in Omaha starts at 7 pm ET on ESPN.
Oklahoma is seeking the program’s third-ever College World Series (1951, 1994). They previously eliminated No. 2 Georgia Tech, No. 15 Kansas, No. 7 Alabama, and No. 3 Georgia to make history.
This run to the College World Series Finals should give hope to every teetering team in late spring. It doesn’t matter what you did earlier in the season. If you make it to the NCAA Tournament and get some momentum, anybody is capable of taking home a title.
Kentucky did not look so different than Oklahoma. The Sooners had just one more SEC win than the Wildcats, they did not win a game in the SEC Tournament, and had to sweat it out on Selection Monday. As we saw in Morgantown, Kentucky looked capable enough to become a team that got hot at the right time, but couldn’t close out West Virginia.
Oklahoma is not the only example. This was an NCAA Tournament where Troy won a College World Series game after eliminating Little Rock in a Super Regional. UCLA had only lost six games all season before the No. 1 seed lost twice at home to Saint Mary’s in the Regional round.
Sports fans love the madness of March because of the unpredictable upsets. Those Cinderella stories are becoming more difficult to find in college basketball. That’s not the case in college baseball. You never know what’s going to happen on the road to Omaha. There is no other tournament as wide open as the College World Series.
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